Pixelated - Samesung no more

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

Welcome to episode 61 of Pixelated, a podcast by 9to5Google. This week, we're unpacking Galaxy Unpacked, exploring everything Samsung announced at this week's foldable-focused event. We also discuss some new Circle to Search tricks on Android and debate whether Gemini for Wear OS is the wrist-based assistant we've been waiting for. Subscribe YouTube Podcasts Pocket Casts Spotify Apple Podcasts Overcast Timecodes 00:00 - Galaxy Z Fold 7 thoughts and impressions 13:29 - Samsung's eventual tri-fold 19:29 - Galaxy Note trade-in rates 25:20 - Galaxy Z Flip 7 thoughts and impressions 33:28 - Circle to Search improvements and Gemini on Wear OS 38:23 - Galaxy Watch 8 thoughts and impressions 44:17 - Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE thoughts Hosts Abner Li Damien Wilde Will Sattelberg Read more Hands-on: The Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Flip 7 are the result of Samsung actually trying Samsung really, really wants Galaxy Note owners to upgrade to a new foldable Galaxy Watch 8 and Watch 8 Classic go official with new design & Gemini for $349 Gemini for Wear OS rolling out to Pixel Watch, Samsung, and more Circle to Search adding AI Mode and gaming help on Android Listen to more 9to5 Podcasts 9to5Mac Happy Hour Electrek The Buzz Podcast Space Explored Rapid Unscheduled Discussions Feedback? Drop us a line at [e-mail], leave a comment on the post, or reach out to our producer.

So foldables. I don't know how I feel about foldables. I don't know if you guys have any different opinions to me, but I feel like I'm a slab phone guy. I'd rather have two slab phones tied together than I would a foldable phone at this point in time. I see the utility people get out of it, but very like galaxy level.

I wonder if it was a waste of engineering resources for everybody to do this. To like commit, spend so much time on getting this foldable screen tech down, right? Like, fundamentally, like, my knee-jerk reaction is still every time you're folding the phone,

you're breaking, you're wearing it out, you're breaking it a little bit. And that still feels uncomfortable to me. Yeah, I feel like I, since the first time I held a foldable, which I guess was, like, I guess was three years ago.

I don't think I'd used before 2020, which feels late in the foldable cycle, but isn't. There's only, you know, three years in. But, yeah, it's always one of those things where it's like, this is so cool. Like, I love holding this and using this for, like, the first week. And then eventually it's just a phone. And, like, it's a phone to the bigger screen, but I've always struggled to, like, find reasons to justify that bigger screen, which I think is, I don't think is, like,

a, you know, unique position. I think plenty of people. have found that it's difficult to figure out what you're going to use that big screen for on an Android phone. And I think, I think making them larger, which is the direction foldables are going in is probably the right move because it just, it makes it feel more like an actual tablet in your pocket than, I think the earlier generation folds were. But, but yeah, I think my, I've always struggled, especially with the pricing. It's like, you know, Damien, you joke about you'd rather have two phones together. It's like when you're,

when you're talking about $2,000, you can get a really, really, really good laptop for $2,000. And it's at that point that, and I know they're different products, but it's, you start to struggle with what am I actually getting out of this thing for the money I'm putting into it. On that, I genuinely, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think for the price of affordable. I mean, if you don't, if you get one off plan, I guess most people don't do that, right? I get the impression that for two, just say $2,000 as an arbitrary figure that we're going to use. You could probably get a used laptop of pretty high acclaim, a pretty good phone, a smartphone. Maybe you could probably get a tablet and a watch, maybe not great ones, but for that kind of money, you can get,

and I hate this term ecosystem because it kind of is, but you would get an ecosystem, right? I want to know if anybody out there has ever replaced all of their devices or a multitude of devices, be that tablet, laptop with a foldable phone. I used a Pixel 9 Pro folder earlier this year, and don't give me wrong, it's fantastic. At what it does, it's very, very good. But there's so many little things that I'm like, well, am I using the inner screen enough?

The apps and the services that you use on the inner screen, I don't necessarily like a square layout. Like, it's almost like it's wasted space. I sometimes wonder whether it's an issue of the UI isn't light yet. nobody has solved the multitasking UI. I agree. I think it should be phone apps, always side by sign of phone apps,

a bit like one pluses tablet UI. I feel like that's the closest we've had versus like tabit optimizations. Wide screen tabit, which is the direction that Google has been pushing. I just wonder whether they, they should have played to their strengths or rather embrace the weakness, that it's all just phone apps. Phone apps are the most optimized thing that everybody has. So I do wonder if it's

a question of nobody getting the UI right. And yeah, it's tablets. I feel like everybody can use a tablet, but the most common behavior is getting a full desktop browsing experience or bigger video and that square aspect ratio. I'm still on the original pixel fold. I intend to upgrade with the Pixel 10 series, but yeah, I'm not looking forward to that square-ish aspect ratio. Do you think that two phone apps side by side, though, like I've never thought that that's multitasking.

Like when people say it's multitasking, it's just Instagram one side and WhatsApp on the other or like Google messages one side and YouTube on the other. Like, am I multitasking or am I just doing, have I just got two phone apps open? I'm not actually producing anything. Do you know what I mean? It's familiar. I can, yeah, I can see that actually. But I think it's just more familiar.

And it's just it reduces the overhead for developers to have to optimize their apps. And yeah. So that's a high level unfoldables. What do we think of Samsung's? Have any of you guys had the opportunity to try them yet? I have not. I have not. Okay, so let me just give you some initial thoughts.

That, the phone is typically Samsung. I don't know what they've been doing over the past two to three years. They've always made pretty good hardware. But the last 18 months, Samsung has gone to a different level. They are smoking everyone in terms of how good their devices feel. Like the S24 Ultra is fantastic. I don't know what, I mean, the S-25 is really sharp. but damn, it's like, I don't know.

It's almost like, I don't know if you guys know about tennis, but it's almost like Novak Djokovic, you had that phase where it's like, why is this guy suddenly really, really good? Like, I don't know, I'm not, obviously, I'm not accusing Samsung of doing anything untoward, like I maybe would be right there at Novak Djokovic, but I definitely feel like Samsung have just hit a plane

where they're like, they're in their stride. They're not making huge leaps every single time. Right. But this, as soon as I picked up the, the seven, full set, Galaxy Fold 7, if I can remember the name. I was genuinely wowed. And I haven't been like that

with the Samsung foldable since the first one. Like, I thought it was cool as a concept. Yeah. But this genuinely, it's incredible. It's so good. It's, I can't, I feel like I'm glazing them a little, but they're so good. Where would you place it with the other,

like with the OPA or where do you put it in the landscape? Okay, so the Magic 5, one of the oner phones that was ridiculous. thin that came out last year, that is, that to me was probably the best in terms of the overall hardware, the software and all that kind of stuff, yeah, probably a little bit far down the league table. But this is right up there. This is toe to toe. Don't get me wrong, you're going to make compromises, but I think this might be, like, the kind of people who've been complaining, foldables aren't thin enough, foldables aren't thin enough. You now have choices to make. Like,

that's very honest. It is, it is, it is, I think it's almost a thin or if not thinner than the S-25, which is just, that boggles the mind. Like, I mean, does that mean it's going to be less durable? Probably you're going to make those compromises there. But like, I do wonder how the market's going to react. The people out there who complain that fallibles are too, oh, it's like having two phones in your pocket side by side.

I personally would prefer that still for utility purposes and all that kind of stuff, but and battery as well. But yeah, I cannot fault them on the hardware. It genuinely is a gorgeous piece of technology. And I guess that's what we, kind of one at this bleeding edge. Is it technically the bleeding edge with, what, foldables for five years or so?

Like, I mean, there isn't really much I can say beyond that, that the hardware's really good. The software I love for you eye this year. How's the crease? Because to me, that's still a hang up for me, because it feels the crease, it feels like plastic when it,

once it starts getting a noticeable crease and I don't, that's not premium. In general, it's still not cold glass. I don't think, I think once you notice it, you're not going to, it's going to be in your mind all the time. I feel like it's less pronounced now than it ever has been. And it feels like they've done that bit by bit. It's still not as good as some of the one plus and the oppos. But, I mean, when we look at it, this is going to be the market leading foldable, right?

This is going to be the big dog. This is going to be the one that everybody is trying to emulate. I wouldn't say they're leading from the front as much because they've definitely been affected by what Opo and Xiaomi and Honor are doing because before they had no inclination that they were going to make the device exponentially thinner but I'm excited to see what they do with the next few anyway

that's what I'm going to say I think if they can keep make it thinner it's going to be ridiculous I think they're going to reach a point where it's diminishing returns but even tiny things like the screen feels, it feels different. I don't know how to quantify it. It doesn't feel plastic. It doesn't feel glass. It feels like this hybrid still, which all foldables do.

Do you think this new thickness or rather thinness inherently puts a disadvantage on the pixel 10 pro fold, which is working to be the exact same chassis with maybe a bigger screen inside? Do you think that thickness is going to be like Samsung announcing just before? Is that going to be a big knock on the, uh, uh, pro-fold. I think if you put that pricing into perspective, like that $2,000 of if you buy, like I say, if you're buying it off plan, off-contract or sell plan, whatever,

yes, 100%. I can't remember the actual updates, update plan for this. Is it seven years? If it's seven years, then. I think bang for your book, you probably might be better off going with the galaxy, but at the end of the day,

I think the kind of people who are going to buy a pixel are going to buy a pixel anyway, right? I think the software is what they're buying it for. That's the thing I have to say that's a surprise thing about foldables. I see so many iOS people go to Android for the first time to get a foldable. That is genuinely interesting. And I guess that counters any cynicism one might have about the form factor. It is genuinely a thing that has allowed Android to lead.

And maybe they'll be able to do that for another year or two before Apple gets into the game. So that has been surprising. It's the only space you can get this experience, right? It's like, you know, if we're being honest, like switching between like a pixel and an iPhone, you know, there are obviously differences, but they are slimmer than ever at the moment in terms of software. Like, you know, it's iOS is more Android-esque than ever. And, you know, especially if you're looking at a pixel, like Google does lock down certain elements of its launcher, for example, that, you know, you could. couldn't have dreamed of on Android 10 years ago. And I think, you know, if just from a hardware perspective, like the only space that is

really exciting beyond like nothing's, you know, design language is, they're foldables. And I think the, you know, but whether you're going to like a large screen foldable, like the fold seven or you're one over by the idea of like a more pocketable smartphone experience with like the flips. I totally see why, you know, diehard iPhone fans feeling a little bored with the phone in their pocket are like, well, all right,

I'll finally check out Android and I'm going to do so through, through an experience I could not have with Apple. This definitely feels, though, as you alluded to there, like that large screen experience is, I mean, Apple fans will always look over and be, I'm sure they'll be wowed by it until Apple eventually does it. I think they will join the party.

But I do wonder if this is that first step towards the Samsung have teased the trifold. Making it thinner and making this almost viable at this thinness is probably that first step of like, hey, we can do this on a trifle. I think that personally is where the real, let's call it in air quotes, the real foldable systems are going to start to really ramp up

and take off because we talked about it a little bit at the start. that square aspect ratio, I just, it just doesn't work for me. Exactly. It just doesn't work because you're always trying to do that thing of like two side by side and then one floating window and you're constantly dragging this little floating window around and we don't, we're not, it's not a desktop, is it? So yeah. Yeah.

So I do wonder if I do get the impression that they've added decks now to the, the, is it a flip as well? I think it's both right. So it was already on, Dex was on the fold. It's now on the flip. Right. Okay. Well, I, that's a, I'm going to rescind what I'm about.

to say that. I think if they can, if they can therefore implement decks as basically the unfolded experience and make it a desk experience, full tablet. Yeah. Yeah, that's what that's, that makes the most sense. That is going to be the future of what Samsung do with these devices. On the trifold. Yeah, on the trifold. And having seen the, I think Huawei, the Huawei have one day, have a trifle, what little I've seen of that is, that's the form factor. If you're going to do foldables, that's the way to go. Durability, well, we're going to find out, aren't we're going to We have 18 to 24 months of finding out how durable these are, and I do genuinely think that we're going to have, it's going to be a wild ride.

I agree. I, I, I, I'm glad we circled back to this because I've been thinking a lot about this, which is like, you know, as much as I, I don't fully hate the square aspect ratio or square is, aspect ratio that every company has centered on, you know, we've seen, you know, basically in the wake of the one plus open, everybody was like, oh, yeah, I guess it is just mostly square screens is what we should be doing. And it doesn't, you know, if I'm struggling to find ways to multitask that fit around my life, because I agree, it usually just does feel like it's like, well, okay, I'm browsing the web and I guess

will just have my music app open over here because I can because why not? You know, it's like, okay, well, what are the other benefits of this larger screen format? it's like, well, you could watch video. You could take it on a plane, watch a movie. Okay, but because it's square, it's actually only a little bit larger than if I were to bring like a Galaxy S-25 Ultra. It's a little larger,

but it's not that much larger, especially considering the price difference. So I think, you know, a trifold fixes that in a lot of ways because it allows you to open up this much wider, you know, where the rumor is 10 inch on Samsung's trifold, this 10-inch display that is wider that will feel like you're holding, you know, a slightly smaller galaxy tab

in your hand, not a smartphone. And, you know, I think that will fit into my life a lot better. It's also probably going to cost $3,000, which circles back to the whole, like, think about how much else you could buy with this, you know, if we're at $2,000 and we're making shopping lists of the products you could buy with this thing. And this has been, I've been saying this, I feel like all of 2025, but it's like, you know, the smartphone pricing thing,

you know, has completely caved in on itself where it's like, if you don't want a foldable, like the pixel 9A is probably all you need and you can spend whatever money you didn't spend on a smartphone on any assorted, right?

Let's say you had $2,000 and you were like, I'm going to buy the fold seven. and then you didn't like it, you don't like that there's no S-Pen support, whatever. That $1,500 goes a long way. And that's going to be even stronger for trifolds if they're $3,000. Like as much as I'm excited to try one, hopefully, you know, in the next year or two, it seems like one of those products that is going to, like, that price is just going to be a hurdle for the majority of consumers, even those who would want it.

I get the impression as well, though, with, and I don't want to be that person who is saying that these companies are running out of ideas. I actually don't think they're running out of ideas. I think what's happened is there is not as much runway for these things because consumers have said, we just want a slab. Just give us a slab with a camera on the back. All I want to do, I don't even care how good the selfie camera is because it's fine for me. I think the average, and I hate the term average consumer, I think it's a bit disrespectful, but I'm going to use it anyway. So prepare to be offended, average consumers. Most of the people out there just don't care.

They literally don't care. And they'll see these and they'll see that price tag and be like, nah, I'm not paying $100, $200, $300 a month for whatever it is because it can be that expensive, right? And like, if say Samsung had their way and the market evolved the way they expected it to evolve, nobody would be using a laptop right now. Every single person would be using a foldable phone

and it's capable of doing all those things. But the laptop form factor's been around since what? Like the late 80s, they can't kill that form factor. We've settled into these things and they are the done thing. Like even touch screens on laptops, that hasn't really taken off. No one wants to do it because it just doesn't work. We have these little touch screens in our phones that work perfectly for that. Like the trifold is probably going to, it might be a Hail Mary shot,

but I do think that is probably going to be the future of it. if it turns out that Samsung, and I have a bit of a theory about this, I have a theory that the fold, the first level fold was a little bit of a, how would I describe it, a concept, proof of concept.

Because Samsung makes some of the best displays, right? I get the impression that they made this flexible display, I think it's flexible OLED, right? They can put that in anywhere. They can put that on car dashboards, they can put that on varying form factors where they're going to make the real money because nobody's, there's not going to be, I don't know,

100 million folds sold every year. They're going to sell that to car manufacturers, even like you might even get it on your fridge. Like, that's where they're going to make the real money for this flexible OLED tech. Everything else that comes as a result of that is like bonuses. So if we get a nice trifle, foldable device, whatever it is, it's just a bonus.

So the market will dictate, I think, and I genuinely think, it's shrinking. It's clearly shrinking because there are more players than ever, but how often do you see a foldable phone out there? I don't think you do. I think initially I've seen less and less as a years have gone by. But the flip, incidentally, actually, just before jumping to the flip, you had a post about how Samsung is really targeting note users. Yep. Yeah, it's, if you go through the trade-in deals on Samsung's website, they all make sense except for the notes. So essentially, you'll scroll through and you'll find the five-year-old Galaxy Note 20 Ultra.

Keep in mind that most of the devices on Samsung's trade-in list are newer than five years old. The five-year-old Galaxy Note 20 Ultra gets you $600 in trade-in value if you're buying Fold 7, which is the same as the S-23 Ultra, the S-23 Plus, and the Z-FliP 5, which are all two-year-old devices. You know, that that means it's worth more to Samsung to get a Note 20 Ultra buyer to buy into the Fold 7 than an S-22 Ultra user. And it's someone who bought an S-25, a regular S-25 this year. That gets you less trade-in. And then in addition to that, if you go through, there's every note device back to the to 2017's Note 8 is on this trade-in list for $300. And that's just not true for any other like, you know, I don't think the S20 is on there at all.

The S21 gets you, you know, a couple hundred bucks. Otherwise, you have to turn in for the $100 other Android smartphone. I call it a consolation prize in the article, $100 consolation prize. It's very obvious to me that Samsung wants note holdouts of which there are, you know, there is a sizable audience of people who are like, I will take my note nine to the grave to buy this phone. I would probably would have been one of those five or six years ago, 100%. I was a big note nine guy,

but sadly mine has gone to the big spicy pillow in the sky, opened it up and it's, yeah, it's in two pieces, basically. But that, I wonder how much of this is effectively, Samsung saying, well, we would love to have you on this device, but when you don't have the one thing that note owners want, which is massive and spend support, it's a bit of a confusing message. And a few things I tried to ask Samsung employees

and hire-ups whilst I was at the session early this week, nobody really wants to outright say that potentially the S-Pen is on the shopping block. And I do think that the days of the S-Pen being a core component in any Samsung device are probably slowly, slowly coming to a close. I think it's going to be a sad day when the S-pen is effectively treated as an optional extra. I can definitely foresee it happening sooner rather than later because, well, when you have a notebook-style device, which doesn't have the ability to take handwritten notes, I think that probably speaks volumes, really.

Yeah, I have to imagine that this change, you know, if you were to get Samson's, on record about it probably, you know, spawns from the same place that the removal of Bluetooth and the S-25 Ultras S-Pen spawned from, right? They're probably like, well, you know, of the folds that supported the S-Pen, which I believe were the three through the six, you know, only, you know, one percent or less than one percent of fold users actually use the S-Pen, which, you know, is a silly, would be a silly thing to say because it's an optional accessory. Like it was never in the box. You had to buy a case that had it built in that was, you know, even at its, at its best,

which was I would say last year's S-Pen case was still bulky and clumsy and the S-Pen experience. It was this flat S-Pen that was not nearly as comfortable as the one that include, or that is included with the S-25 Ultra, for example. I really think that this is them being like, well, you know, we we offered it for a few years and not enough people bought it. And the digitizer takes up space in this chassis and we can really drop, you know, we can we can save a lot of internal space by getting rid of it. So let's just do that and we'll ride the controversy wave and it will pass and, you know, we'll move on. And I think that's true. But again, it does clash with the idea that they're like, by the way, Galaxy Note owner.

come get your new phone. Just get ready to get rid of the S-Pen. Like, it is silly. Yeah, get rid of the one thing you are obsessed with and you don't want to give up on all those functionalities. For years, I kind of thought, naively, I thought they would kind of, I guess, what sort of engineer a situation

where the S-Pen could go in that, like, you know, the cleave of the fold in the middle of it? I kind of thought, I don't, yeah, in hindsight, it's very, very, naive that they, that I could even think this would happen, but I thought, oh, they'll increase the, the length of the mechanism so that the, the S-pen can go in there and make it like a proper, like, you know, like a sleet, I guess some notebooks have it where you'll have like a pen slot at the back of it. Yeah. But it's not to be. I think clearly everyone's like,

they want it thinner, but they want to have all these features as well. Obviously, the, the man on the street clearly doesn't know how the, how much of an engineer in feet it is to do all of these things simultaneously. Right. And you've got to make compromises, right? But it's an interesting product. I think the Z-fold seven or the Z-fold-7 will be fairly, I think it will go down well. So far, my initial impressions are it's a big step forward of the last year's version.

Because it just felt like nothing changed for like three or four years. And I think Samsung kind of even were not outright saying it last year, but it definitely felt like, oh, we've made some thermal improvements and we have a new chip, but not is new, but it is what it is. I think the flip is pretty interesting. Make your case. Make the case for the flip. I think Samsung's definitely looked at what Moto are doing and said,

we're going to have a bit of that cover screen action. He's very weird to pick it up and not think, oh, this looks very much like a Moto Razor. But I've never really been a massive flip person. I do think contrary to what I've just been saying about foldable devices, the flip feels like a little bit of. of a, too many compromises on the camera, I think, a lot of the ways. But I do think the clam shell is, it's going to be perfect for a lot of people.

And that bigger screen is, I mean, it's a typical Samsung screen. It's absolutely gorgeous to look at like any, any Samsung panel. But I don't know. Have you guys, have you guys ever thought that you've wanted the outside cameras to be in the way when you're using the phone? Because there's going to be a lot of U.S. I've used the flip six for the past year. I've had on my desk for the past year.

And the positioning of the cameras inherently means that you don't get to use the space to the left, which is why Samsung is using it for the now bar, which I think is a pretty clever UI of Florence. But at the same time, the opposition to putting four apps compared to Motto is, I thought we were going to have like a golden age of widgets of like large cover screen widgets pushed by Google.

That hasn't really panned out. I think... The form factor... I think a small phone is the biggest form factor. I mean, it's the biggest appeal rather than being able to use a phone on a small screen as needed. Have you tried to use the outer screen as the main experience? Because I've seen a few people try that,

but I just found it. I tried to do it. I haven't really done this before anyway the last one I used was the one that was like a half display at the front I think this the idea is cool and I think for me my first thought was

oh this would be great for like emulating classic 3DS and DS titles this is the perfect DS emulator and I don't know I didn't at any point think this is going to be a great phone but I feel like if they can make some cool if developers anywhere I don't think developers will do this because I don't think it's a big enough market share.

But if anything can get implemented and enhance for this outer display, this square form factor, it might actually like inadvertently benefit the square display of the inner display of the fold. So I don't know. I'm just a bit boring here. That's a very good point. I don't think there's enough demand market share, whatever, to get Google to start encouraging developers to, like, optimize their apps for a cover screen. I don't think that is there.

Again, I think widgets would have been the right situation, but still, that it's not, you're targeting one specific form factor that's not as mass market as flat, as slab. So it's the UI issues there. Okay, I'm going to jump in and say, what would you pick if you had to pick between the two? Because I.

probably would, if you have to pick between the fold and a flip, which you think is the one that's going to be catching people, most people's attention and their wallets. Oh, that's a hard one. I think, I think the flip remains cooler for a lot of people. I think, I think the promise of like a productivity machine, like, oh man, you're going to be doing so much work on the go. I think, or even movies. Yeah, or movies. The movies thing is good. But it's, I feel like the fold is a difficult cell. Yeah, it's not enough.

And then I think the flip has this baked in nostalgia factor that the fold just doesn't have, right? Like I think a lot of people have, you know, my first phone was a, was a Moto Razor, not the Android phone, but like the Razor B3. And, and I'll always have nostalgia for this form factor because I had like two or three flip phones before I had anything else. and I think it's cool that these exist. And, you know, from a hardware perspective, the Flip 7 in particular delivers kind of what I've been asking for from both Samsung and Motorola, which is they're finally starting to slim down this chassis.

Like it 13.7 millimeters is still pretty bulky compared to other phones, right? But I'm glad to see we are finally starting to pay attention to slimming down this. as well because I've never daily drove a Samsung clamshell device but I have reviewed multiple raisers and the thing that always stops me from sticking on them other than some some court or some complaints about Motorola software

is it just feels so thick in your pocket like it's it takes up less space but also but that it protrudes so far from your life. Ironically, it feels so much more blocky than a fold type thing. Especially like the more recent, you know, even just down to like the one plus open or the pixel 9 Pro fold, which are both like, I think the open is like 12 millimeters and the Pro pixel 9 Pro fold was like 10 point something. And like, like, compared to the 14 to 15 millimeter clamshells from Samsung and Motorola, we've seen in recent years. Like, those did feel they're heavier, but they felt a little more comfortable in my pocket because they just weren't so thick.

I think this is such a first world problem as a former game by advanced SP carrier. I think, hey, hey, all right. I have my, my, my, my, my, my, Anbernik knockoff right here on my desk. All right. I get it. This thing, this thing is a, is a. That is chunky, yeah. That is chunker.

But I have not tried to carry it in my pocket all that often. I will be honest with you, it usually gets thrown in a backpack. You've not lived. You need to carry in your back pocket. On the school bus, I was there. I was there with the ESP. Well, yeah, like I think making those incremental strides, I do wonder how much of this is derived from the fact that Samsung has really not

flat. I think the wider industry has been pretty critical of Samsung's foldable efforts of the last few years. But I think what's interesting is how they still receive this criticism. And obviously, they clearly are the biggest player in this space, bar no other company out there. And I guess that ties into a little bit of, with regards to the software, everything now feels, I mean, they have these partnerships with Google and we saw Rick was on stage during the keynote,

which is very interesting to see him at another product launch on stage talking about Google apps and services. It definitely feels like everything now is so, everything related to foldables, even in some respects, regards to the pixel folds, Samsung gets first dibs. And we saw some cool stuff.

I think the optimization for that outer screen with Gemini and stuff is going to be interesting, how that benefits everybody else. I'm not really sure. But yeah, there was some interesting updates to Circle to Search, which I'm fascinated, endlessly fascinating.

by because I use it multiple times a day because I'm so lazy at copying text and searching for things. I'm really excited to see how this pans out. I know that the best part of this is, and we talk Pixel here anyway, is that Google has just said, hey, you're going to get some of this cool stuff that Samsung's announced on stage that they're getting with their devices. So pixel users, we're not left out. So we might be talking unpacked, but Circle to Search is getting some updates. We've been confirmed Ware West 6, which is some, sorry, Gemini, which is technically I was told anyway, and I think it was maybe passed on incorrectly to me, was related to where I was 6th.

But we're not left in the dark if you use a pixel in any form. Like, you're going to get some cool stuff off the back of this. Like, I'm, I mean, I'm a gamer. So I like the fact that there's a throwback here to Stadia and being able to search for boss help or puzzle help in your games. Don't get me wrong. I want to test this out now with some of that, in air quotes, emulated and legally obtained ROMs that I have on.

some of the games that I play on mobile. But yeah, let's see, I guess let's see how that pans out because these are rolling out right now and it seems to be pretty decent. Yeah. Gemini on watch, I want to get into this because, hey, I'm a Gemini on Doc kind of guy. So you know where I stand on Gemini.

This, I was so impressed. Like, I don't know, have you guys ever used Google Assistant on your wearables? Barely. Yeah, that answers my question, right? Barely. Like, I don't because I have. if that big...

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that experience, we'll shelve what we think about that. Gemini on the wearable, completely different in terms of speed, in terms of accuracy,

in terms of... I was... I mean, don't get me wrong. I was testing it on a Galaxy Watch 8. Might have been the classic. I can't remember which one was which. The speed at which it activated and took the voice commands,

night and day difference between that and the assistant. I am so excited to see how this pans out because at least in theory, you can do every single thing that you can do on your phone or your desktop. The screen limits some things. Like I tried to do some image generation and it did it, but you then had to get one of the demo people to show me the Gemini log to show me the images

because it wouldn't display on the phone. So sadly, sorry on the watch face. But yeah, this feels like a big move. whether people use it or not, I'm not really sure, because I would love to see the usage statistics for Google Assistant on Wearables, because I imagine it's in the very, very low digits. And they stopped improving it forever ago,

so it's just sat there feeling so ancient and slow. I truly, like, the thing that has excited me the most about Gemini is very little of what they've, like, for example, shown on stage at I.O. It has been, you know, the improvements to language processing, over something like assistant is the real like reason to be excited about Gemini in my opinion because of spaces like the watch or or Android Auto for example where Gemini is also coming. It's like those those spaces like need, you know, either, you know, if you're asking your watch

something, you're doing it because you want like a very quick succinct to answer that you don't want to pull your phone out for. And that that was like the biggest problem with assistant on where I was is that you just look at it loading and then it would fail 50% of the time and you'd be frustrated and have to pull your phone out. And then in the car, it's, it's, you know, even more specific where it's like, well, I can't use my phone right now. I need to be able to get to this. I need it to do this thing and half the time, maybe not half the time. It's a little better in the car. But sometimes it is not understanding me or I misspeak halfway through and I need to start over. And that's, I think, you know, looking through some of the examples of what you can ask, Gemini, on your watch, I think it's like, if the speed's there and the flexibility is there and the language processing is there, like, this is, this becomes, it goes from something I would never use on my wrist.

So the thing I'm going to use the most on my wrist. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, what's so promising here is Gemini as a control method as an actual voice interaction in a truest sense. the word where you can access various functions you can check out your health stats you can start playing music it's unawareable where the screen is always be a limiting factor on your wrist and in future glasses and whatnot it's it's going to be a very there's a lot of well-wanted well-deserved hype around this and the language the marketing guru has been pushing as it's it's like it's going to be a game changer along those lines. It's very, it's really, it could be really promising.

And I can't wait to start using it. It's actively rolling out for people as of taping as of this week. So fingers crossed, that's coming to everybody, whereas four and above. The other, no, I guess we can talk about the hardware now, about the Galaxy Watch 8. And I have to say, the base one, It looks much less. It looked really cranky in renders and weeks going in, but seeing our live shots looks pretty slim.

Do you know what? It is the better of the two. I think I don't want to say, I'm going to say, I think Samsung fumbled the classic. I think the classic looks horrendous. I agree. It looks like, it looks like, how does it in the, in the,

I think it's like a white titanium color or white, white and silver. It looks like a toy. It looks like a cheap toy you'd get in a Gatchapod. I was, when I picked it up, I was like, I kind of looked around and I'm sure the staff were looking at me like, what's wrong with this guy here? And I genuinely wanted to say to someone, is this the real thing or is this a pre-release sample? It was horrend. And don't get me wrong, the lighting doesn't help sometimes at these hands-on events, but I was shocked at how bad it looked. Yeah. Don't get wrong, I mean, I can talk about Samsung hardware all day in terms of how well it's made and it feels amazing.

I'm not going to deny that, but it looks horrendous. It's almost like, do you think... Their wheel just looks so out of place that's it. That's what I was trying to quantify. Do you think, okay,

let's get into a weird conspiracy theory here. Do you wonder, I wonder if Samsung don't want to make the classic note anymore because the scroll wheel doesn't really add much utility, right? What can you do? I wonder if, I wonder if they're genuinely thinking,

we just don't want to make the wheel model anymore. It looks conky. looks weird. Yeah. The future is, I feel like there's an Apple watch boomer ages ago that you would use the side of the watch as the controls, instead of a physical dial, you would slide up and down on just the side of the watch. So that's basically you add a touchpad, an integrated touchpad.

And I think that's, the precedent that the classic was going with was a watch, diving watches, especially they have rotating dials. But I don't, but it just looks cranky on this latest generation. And I know like people love the utility, but it's just, it just adds onto the display that you're actively need to interact with all the time. I think that's on the way out. Yeah, just think, like you say, the idea that you would scroll for one thing and touch the screen for another feels a little bit unintuitive. It's not an intuitive. That's wrong.

That's a really wrong way of thinking about it. But I think the shape of the watch, almost, and I guess that that lends itself to holistic design and design principles that you design something so that it's very immediately obvious where you go with your interactions. And it's like there's all these like where the bezel sits. I'm looking at my wrist for some reason, like a weirdo. I'm looking at my wrist trying to visage it. When you see a normal watch, like you hit that edge of the casing and then it goes into the strap, well, it's almost like there's this edge plinth. platform, step, whatever you want to call it. And then there's the rotating bezel.

And it's like, do I go there or do I go into the screen? And it makes the watch look wider and thicker and more, well, it is thicker. But I'm like, it's boggling. I'm getting annoyed now thinking about it. So someone else, please tell me that it's a good idea. And then we can argue about it. I can't do that. It's, to me, it's such a bizarre decision to take the watch that was most specifically designed

to look not like a smart watch. to look like a standard watch that was the entire idea of the classic line that's why it has that rotating bezel so why it's got the large bezel in general and to combine it with the ultra's like look and feel it very clearly works

you know again and I think it works much better as we've said in pictures than it did in renders but I largely speaking like the watch just looks old it just looks old like a serious regression to the top in the year of all the way.

It does. It, oh my God, you're right. It looks like a smart watch from 2014. It looks like something like, you know,

LG would have been like, we've got our, we've got our enthusiast watch. It's huge and it's got a big dial on it. And like some people would like it. But I just, as a successor to like previous classic models, like I am stuck here being a little bit like I don't,

I feel like people are going to look at this design. And like most people will either be like, I don't too big. I don't need all that. I'll just go to the cheaper watch eight or be like, well, if I like this size and design, the ultra is actually doing it better.

So I might as well just go to the ultra. Yeah, the ultra feels more native. We have a shot on the side of the Watch 8, Watch 8 classic and the Pixel Watch. And again, while I do think that the watch eight looks better than it ended in a previous expected,

there's a crunkiness to it, an unnecessary crunkiness to it in dropping the full circular embrace. And you can obviously see why. Like, it's probably easier to fit stuff into this squircle-ish thing rather than a pure circular, something like the pixel watch. But I don't think we're seeing enough benefit, hardware benefit from it, to justify this, I don't know, in-between design. Yeah.

It's a strange one because if Samsung have done some good things at this launch and then some watch eight classics, this will call them, it's a bit of a drop ball at the moment. It's like, oh, yeah, we're doing so well. And then, oh, why did you do that? That's a little bit sad about the Flip 7FE, which we don't need to talk about. Yeah, okay.

I mean, that definitely feels like, I mean, let's think of it from an environmental perspective. They're reusing some chassis that are lying around, get them out there. And I do wonder if that sets precedent now. We're going to get FEs of every single model for the entirety of Samsung's existence now. I would have rather them just kept the flip six around at like a slightly lower price. It's not like the FE is that cheap. Like, $900 is expensive for what I think you're getting there,

especially when you consider that what you really need to compare. is the 256 gigabyte FE, which is only $100 cheaper than the 256 gigabyte flip seven. Like, if you, that $100 difference gets you a lot of upgrades compared to the FE. I just don't. Like, it is good that they're using that, they're reusing that chassis, but, you know, compared to the razor, like the, which, which I think the, the regular razor this year is the one to buy, I cannot recommend anybody look at the FE. Like I would rather like go shop for a flip six like they're they're still around so that's what I would say

Yeah, I think that ties in as well quite kind of nicely to the fact that if you are looking at the watch eight and you don't like the look of it Yeah at least the most of the core internals are pretty much the same as the seven yeah so you don't you don't necessarily need to spend a bundle now to And it's so cheap yeah the prices come down so yeah yeah where OS I think it kind of it kind of It's kind of nice as well to see that where OS is in a strong space, even though there were less players. Like we still have options. Like you don't need to upgrade every single year to get that latest chip. Like I kind of like the idea that they keep a chip set around for a little while.

Yeah, I think we're in, we're kind of in a decent little place. And I think that all of these updates and stuff makes sense. I think for pixel users out there, you're going to get some cool stuff. I'm really pleased that Google's not just let Samsung have major exclusivity for a long period time. But yeah, it's a funny launch, but it's a nice launch. And I think we'll see some fallout in the next few weeks. I don't know if you guys are going to pre-order any. I don't know if you pre-order any. I didn't. You didn't. I think that sums up, sums up where we are in terms of this. To end this on a pixel note, like the pixel vent is feel so close. Like, I don't,

I wouldn't advise any, same with the nothing four and three that just, that's about to launch. It's so close to what the pixel is doing and a few weeks later to the iPhone. It's such a tight gap that honestly, if you're buying for the year, just wait a bit and see how things land. Yeah, 100% wait until the end of the year. You're going to get those Black Friday discounts. Even if they're slim, there will be something there. So it's not even like, you know, I don't even think you're really losing out, like not rushing to pre-order necessarily, like, wait for all your options to be on the table. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Yeah, well, we've been saying this for a long time. When you're listening to us, patience is a virtue, and I think that's a perfect note to end on. So thank you guys for joining me today. It's always fun talking new things, and we always like getting into the nitty-gritty and, yeah, airing a few of our own complaints. So yeah, cheers, guys.

Bye. Bye.